Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are more sweeter-John Keats

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Fragmented Memoirz

Ma, Take me back to your nest.

Few Days back I wrote a poem, “Ma, sing a lullaby to me, take me back to your nest.” ( We, Assamese call mother Ma and father Deuta. My mothers’ house is near a rail station where a few Bengali families live. It is disintegrated now. She hails from a middle class family, and my father hails from a lower middle class family. The Bengali families had a good relation with our mother’s family, even they did visit our house, and they liked our mother very much. Bela Mama is good friend to us. May be due to their influence we said our father (he is no more) Baba. Our friends did tease us, why being an Assamese we say Baba instead of Deuta. My parents lived in Mumbai for 13 years. Our eldest sister was born in Mumbai, she first says Baba and so we all the siblings say Baba. When I ask my mother why you taught us to say Baba, she said you all yourselves naturally say Baba, Baba is Baba, no need to worry.

Baba being served in Indian Navy sailed to several countries of the world. When he said us the stories of seafaring life, we were getting scared.

All our aunts are well educated and in our childhood days we say them, “ardha Bidheshi and ardha asomiya” (half British and half Assamese for their lifestyle)

One of maternal uncles of our father is a renowned freedom fighter, so many of the political doyens of Assam (Bimala Prasad Chalia, former CM of Assam and a Padma Vibhushan awardee) visited our house with him and they hang out here discussing politics. My grandmother was a good chef. She is called as Lakhimi by the locals for her mild nature. When I visited some friends of father in Guwahati, they said that they had very fond memories at our ancestral home and our grandmother cooked chicken choup and lip-smacking dishes for them. (Our old house was broken around 1985 to build an Assam type building by our cousin brother (elder uncle’s son), unless it is broken it may survive another several years). I can hardly remember our old British bungalow style house. (Half brick walls, wood crafted, half bamboo wall, thatched roof)

At a lonely moment I feel I am not doing what I like from my heart, I am just wandering here and there…I want to get marry soon and feed a babe. My closest buddy Sangi (we name ourselves as Lucky and Pozzo, the two characters of Waiting for Godot, not to mean the symbolism of the characters, but to mean only about our wandering life of the University days) says, “Please come back and live in your own style. Don’t let Delhi to wash away your finer sensibility”.